leasing residential property for office space?

I am trying to work out if I can rent a residential apartment in Melbourne for use as office space.
We don't have customers or product, but no one would be using the property to live in so I am not sure if that violates any rules.
I am finding it difficult to find any legislation/rules on this - however I am sure there must be.
Thanks

 

Zoning
Strata bylaws

 

Phone the council, they'll tell you. I rent a 2 bed apartment (not in the CBD though) as our office and there's no issues. Can't remember what the actual zoning says.

 

Thanks, can I ask though, do you also live on the premises? and are the landlords aware that you use it for your business?

 

No, we don't live on the premises and yes the landlords are aware and happy and we have a commercial lease with them. We had the lease drawn up by our solicitor and everything is above board, council were happy.

The same apartment was used as an insurance agency for 10 years before they moved to bigger premises and we took it on, we have 5 of us running as a drawing office.

It's not an apartment in a multi story CBD type scenario, we are above some high street shops. There's two apartments above 3 shops. Us and our next door neighbor. We're set up comercial and the neighbor lives there as his residential home, which works great for us as he's at work all day whilst we work, then he's home all night wile we're closed so it's good security.

When I get chance I'll see if I can find the stuff form our solicitor from the orignal lease draft, see what she said about zoning. I'm almost certain it's just resi though and all we had to do was run it passed council but I can't remember exactly.

 

Can't comment on Victoria, but you can do home occupation in NSW as exempt developmnent (no approvals required). You might have something similar in Vic, but in NSW it has to be undertaken by the permanent resident of the property, so you can't just rent it out as an office.

As others have pointed out, there is most probably something in the Strata bylaw that prevents this. In regard to zoning, figure out which zone, look up that zone in the planning intrument and you will see three types of developments along such lines "development that does not need consent" "development that needs consent" "development that is prohibited". If it comes under the table of uses that does not need consent, you're good to go (from a compliance point of view), if it needs consent, you need a planning permit, if prohibited, it's a write off.

 

@NikkiMelb Just been through all my paperwork, can't find anything with the zoning on. I definitely remember phoning and talking to council but I don't 100% remember what was said. I'm almost sure it's just zoned resi but it wasn't an issue with council for what we are doing here.

I guess it's like the houses you see in estates where they convert their garage to a hair salon or yoga studio, or people that run home-based businesses out of rentals?

Give council a call, see what they say.

 

Thanks! I will do. Appreciate you taking the time to look at your paperwork.

 

Often shoptop housing is in a commercial zoning - a split zoning doesn't occur so you may be able to use without consent. Check the LEP and to confirm order the S149 certificate.

 

I'm a Town Planner:

Office use is prohibited in a General Residential Zone. It can be done in a Residential Growth Zone but needs a planning permit.

Office use at this scale doesn't need a permit in a Commercial Zone.

But you'll need to provide 3.5 car spaces per 100sqm of rentable area or get a permit to provide fewer car spaces.

Use this link to find out what zone you're site is in. Hit the Planning Property Report button on the right hand side of the panel to get started.

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